The Singapore College of Insurance (SCI) Certification in General Insurance (CGI) is a modular programme rather than a single paper. Since 12 June 2002 it has comprised three modules: Basic Insurance Concepts and Principles (BCP), Personal General Insurance (PGI) and Commercial General Insurance (ComGI). Depending on the lines of general insurance a person sells or advises on, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and industry bodies expect the relevant certification. This guide is written for candidates preparing for any combination of these modules: new intermediaries in insurers, brokers, agencies, banks and finance companies, plus support staff handling claims. It organises 30 substantive concepts across the official module contents, explains the mechanisms behind each idea with original examples, and flags the traps that most often cost marks. Use it alongside the official SCI eBook study text: read a concept, attempt the self-check scenarios, and confirm all administrative details such as fees and schedules directly with SCI, which may change arrangements at its discretion.
Exam and assessment essentials
- Programme structure
- Three modular exams: BCP (Basic Insurance Concepts and Principles), PGI (Personal General Insurance) and ComGI (Commercial General Insurance); BCP is the common foundation module[1]
- Format or assessment
- BCP: 40 multiple-choice questions in 45 minutes; PGI: 50 multiple-choice questions in 1 hour 15 minutes; ComGI: 50 multiple-choice questions in 1 hour 15 minutes[1]
- Passing standard and scoring
- 70% minimum passing grade per module; one mark per correct answer; no marks awarded or deducted for wrong or blank answers; only a result slip is issued, no certificate[1]
- Examination mode
- English-medium closed-book computer screen examination; self-study permitted; exams conducted daily on weekdays; no limit on the number of resits[1]
- Preparation benchmark
- SCI recommends a minimum of 40 to 50 study hours per certification module, varying with experience and ability[1]
- Study text currency
- Preparation is via eBook only; SCI released BCP study text 8th Edition (Version 1.1) effective 3 August 2026, so candidates must verify they are studying the current version[1][2]
- CPD recognition
- On passing: BCP confers 0.75 CPD hours; PGI 1.25 CPD hours; ComGI 1.25 CPD hours[1]
What the syllabus covers
This study map groups the official scope into revision themes. It is not an official chapter list or a prediction of question weightings.
BCP: Basic Insurance Concepts and Principles (common foundation module)
Explain how the insurance and reinsurance market works, the regulatory and industry landscape, risks and insurance, the principles of insurance, contract and agency law, insurance documents, claims handling, reinsurance and co-insurance, and ethics, professionalism, data protection and cyber hygiene. Be able to apply principles such as insurable interest, indemnity, proximate cause, contribution and subrogation to short fact patterns.[1]
PGI: Personal General Insurance
Describe the cover, conditions and typical exclusions of private motor (including motorcycle), personal property (houseowner and householder), personal accident, travel, personal liability, health covers (critical illness and hospital cash) and specialist covers such as foreign domestic worker and golfer insurance, and match product features to customer needs accurately.[1]
ComGI: Commercial General Insurance
Explain property and business interruption covers, liability and contingency lines, commercial motor, marine and aviation, construction, machinery and bond insurance, pecuniary covers such as fidelity and credit, foreign worker insurance, and group personal accident and corporate travel, including how sums insured, indemnity periods and policy conditions operate in commercial contexts.[1]
30 key concepts to understand
- Pure risk versus speculative risk
- Risk pooling and the law of large numbers
- Insurable interest
- Utmost good faith and material non-disclosure
- Indemnity and its fixed-benefit limits
- Proximate cause
- Subrogation
- Contribution between insurers
- Essentials of a valid contract
- Agency in insurance distribution
- Reinsurance versus co-insurance
- Regulatory and industry framework, data protection and cyber hygiene
- Private motor cover types
- Motor excess and no-claim discount mechanics
- Houseowner versus householder cover
- Personal accident fixed benefits
- Travel insurance structure and exclusions
- Personal liability insurance
- Critical illness and hospital cash as defined-benefit health covers
- Foreign domestic worker and golfer insurance
- Commercial property insurance and basis of sum insured
- Business interruption: gross profit and indemnity period
- Public liability for businesses
- Product liability versus product recall
- Commercial motor and fleet cover
- Marine cargo, general average and aviation
- Contractors' all risks and erection all risks
- Insurance bonds and the guarantee mechanism
- Pecuniary covers: fidelity guarantee and credit insurance
- Foreign worker insurance, group personal accident and corporate travel
BCP: Risks & Insurance
1. Pure risk versus speculative risk
A pure risk has only two outcomes: loss or no loss, such as fire destroying stock. A speculative risk carries the possibility of gain, such as buying shares. Conventional insurance is designed for pure risks, because predictable adverse events can be pooled, whereas insurers do not cover gambles where the insured hopes for an adverse outcome to profit.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming insurance can compensate for every financial downside, including investment losses or falling demand.
BCP: Risks & Insurance
2. Risk pooling and the law of large numbers
Insurers charge premiums calibrated to expected losses across a large pool of similar, independent exposures. The law of large numbers means actual results converge on predicted frequencies as the pool grows, making losses budgetable. Pooling fails when risks are correlated, as in a catastrophe hitting many insureds at once, or when exposures are heterogeneous.[1]
Common mistake: Believing pooling alone eliminates risk; correlated events like a widespread storm can produce simultaneous claims far above average.
BCP: Principles Of Insurance
3. Insurable interest
Insurable interest is a genuine financial or legal relationship with the subject matter, such that the insured benefits from its safety and suffers from its loss. It distinguishes insurance from a wager. In general insurance, the interest must typically exist at the time of loss, which is why an owner can claim but a stranger to the property cannot.[1]
Common mistake: Confusing emotional concern or mere proximity with the financial relationship the principle requires.
BCP: Principles Of Insurance
4. Utmost good faith and material non-disclosure
Because the applicant knows far more about the risk than the insurer, insurance contracts demand utmost good faith. Facts that would influence a prudent insurer's decision to accept or how to price are material and must be disclosed, even if not asked. Breach can entitle the insurer to remedies such as avoiding the policy or reducing the settlement, typically in proportion to what a truthful proposal would have earned.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming only questions asked on the form matter; unasked material facts can still trigger consequences.
BCP: Principles Of Insurance
5. Indemnity and its fixed-benefit limits
Indemnity restores the insured to the financial position just before the loss, no better. Mechanisms include market-value assessment, deductibles and average for underinsurance. Crucially, indemnity is not a blanket rule: fixed-benefit covers such as personal accident scheduled sums, critical illness lump sums and hospital cash per-day benefits pay the contractual amount regardless of actual financial loss.[1]
Common mistake: Quoting indemnity as universal and treating fixed-benefit payouts as over-compensation when they are contractual sums.
BCP: Principles Of Insurance
6. Proximate cause
Proximate cause is the dominant, effective cause of a loss in an unbroken sequence, not necessarily the event nearest in time. A loss is payable when the proximate cause is an insured peril and not excluded. When multiple causes operate together, analysis of which was dominant drives the coverage decision.[1]
Common mistake: Selecting the last event in the chain as the cause instead of identifying the dominant effective one.
BCP: Principles Of Insurance
7. Subrogation
After paying an indemnity claim, the insurer steps into the insured's rights of recovery against responsible third parties, preventing the insured from recovering twice for one loss. Recovery efforts should not prejudice the insured's position, and subrogation rights generally do not arise under fixed-benefit policies where no indemnity was given.[1]
Common mistake: An insured settling with or releasing the negligent third party without the insurer's consent, which can destroy subrogation rights and affect the claim.
BCP: Principles Of Insurance
8. Contribution between insurers
When two or more indemnity policies cover the same insurable interest, the same peril and the same loss, each insurer shares proportionately to its sum insured, so the insured cannot profit by claiming in full from each. Fixed-benefit policies are generally outside this sharing principle because they are not indemnity contracts.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming the insured may collect the full loss from whichever policy was bought first.
BCP: Law Of Contract And Agency
9. Essentials of a valid contract
An insurance policy is enforceable only if offer, acceptance, consideration, capacity, lawful purpose and intention to create legal relations all exist. In practice the completed proposal is usually the offer and the insurer's acceptance, evidenced by the policy, completes the contract. Insurance contracts additionally rest on utmost good faith and carry features such as indemnity.[1]
Common mistake: Thinking the cover note is a separate contract rather than evidence that cover has temporarily commenced on the insurer's acceptance.
BCP: Law Of Contract And Agency
10. Agency in insurance distribution
An agent's authorised acts bind the principal, so it matters whose agent a person is. A tied agent generally represents the insurer and can bind it to representations, while a broker acts for the insured and owes duties to that client. Apparent or usual authority can still bind a principal even beyond internal limits where outsiders rely reasonably.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming every intermediary in the transaction represents the insurer by default.
BCP: Reinsurance And Co-Insurance
11. Reinsurance versus co-insurance
Reinsurance is insurance for the insurer: the ceding company passes part of its risk to a reinsurer, but the original insured has no direct claim against the reinsurer and remains the insurer's responsibility. Co-insurance, in the Singapore market sense, means several insurers jointly underwriting one large risk, each accepting an agreed share and contracting directly with the insured.[1]
Common mistake: Confusing co-insurance as risk-sharing among insurers with the average clause's effect on underinsured property, which is a different mechanism.
BCP: Regulatory Landscape, Ethics, Data Protection And Cyber Hygiene
12. Regulatory and industry framework, data protection and cyber hygiene
MAS is the statutory regulator; its notices, including Notice No: MAS 211 and Notice No: MAS 502, underpin competency requirements for those selling or advising on general insurance. GIA and SIBA impose industry requirements on front-line personnel. Candidates must also understand professional ethics, data protection obligations when handling customers' personal data, and practical cyber hygiene such as safeguarding access credentials.[1]
Common mistake: Treating industry association rules as if they were legislation; the two sources differ in legal force.
PGI: Private Motor Car Insurance
13. Private motor cover types
Private motor policies range from third party only, through third party fire and theft, to comprehensive. Each level adds perils affecting the insured's own vehicle; third party sections address liability to others for death, injury and property damage. Cover type selection should match the vehicle's value, usage and the owner's capacity to absorb a loss.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming comprehensive means everything is covered, including gradual mechanical breakdown or wear and tear, which policies exclude.
PGI: Private Motor Car Insurance
14. Motor excess and no-claim discount mechanics
An excess is the first portion of each claim borne by the insured and keeps minor losses off the pool; some excesses apply only to specified drivers or events. A no-claim discount rewards claim-free years with premium reductions and is typically reduced after an at-fault claim. NCD protects the discount, not the insured from premium entirely.[1]
Common mistake: Claiming for trivial damage without realising the NCD reduction plus excess may exceed the settlement value.
PGI: Personal Property Insurance
15. Houseowner versus householder cover
Houseowner insurance covers the physical building, walls, roof and fixtures, while householder insurance covers contents, the movable possessions inside. The sections are usually sold together but respond to different property, and sums insured must reflect rebuilding cost and replacement value of contents respectively. Renters typically need contents cover only.[1]
Common mistake: A homeowner insuring only the building and assuming furniture, electronics and clothing are automatically included.
PGI: Personal Accident Insurance
16. Personal accident fixed benefits
Personal accident policies pay scheduled sums upon accidental death, permanent disablement according to a benefit scale, or weekly amounts during temporary total disablement. They are fixed-benefit, not indemnity, although a medical expenses section may reimburse reasonable costs up to a cap. Policies carry conditions on age, occupation class and definition of accident that decide entitlement.[1]
Common mistake: Describing personal accident as fully indemnifying medical bills; only the reimbursement section does that, within its own limits.
PGI: Travel Insurance
17. Travel insurance structure and exclusions
Travel policies bundle sections: overseas medical and related expenses, trip cancellation or curtailment, baggage and personal effects, delay, and personal liability, each with its own limit and sometimes a deductible. Common exclusions include pre-existing conditions, travel against government advisories, and certain high-risk activities unless a specific extension applies.[1]
Common mistake: Buying cover after an advisory is issued or an event is foreseeable, then expecting cancellation costs to be met.
PGI: Personal Liability Insurance
18. Personal liability insurance
This cover responds when the insured becomes legally liable to third parties for accidental bodily injury or property damage, and typically funds legal defence costs. It excludes damage to the insured's own property, injury to household members, deliberate acts and liability assumed purely under contract. Worldwide extensions may apply with territorial conditions.[1]
Common mistake: Expecting the section to pay for the insured's own belongings or for injuries the insured deliberately caused.
PGI: Health Insurance: Critical Illness And Hospital Cash
19. Critical illness and hospital cash as defined-benefit health covers
Critical illness cover pays a lump sum on diagnosis of a condition meeting the policy's precise definition from its listed conditions, often subject to conditions such as a survival period. Hospital cash pays a fixed amount per day of eligible confinement. Both are fixed-benefit contracts, so payouts are set by the schedule rather than by actual costs incurred.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming any cancer or heart problem automatically triggers payment; the diagnosed condition must satisfy the policy's specific written definition.
PGI: Foreign Domestic Worker Insurance And Golfer's Insurance
20. Foreign domestic worker and golfer insurance
Foreign domestic worker policies bundle employer obligations, such as personal accident benefits for the helper, medical expenses and repatriation costs, alongside minimum cover levels the authorities require employers to maintain; employers must confirm current statutory minimums. Golfer's insurance covers golfing-specific exposures such as third-party injury from a stray ball, equipment loss and hole-in-one liabilities at some clubs.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming the employer's own personal accident policy extends automatically to the domestic helper; a purpose-built policy is needed.
ComGI: Property Insurance
21. Commercial property insurance and basis of sum insured
Commercial property cover can be arranged on an indemnity or reinstatement basis; reinstatement pays replacement cost but usually requires the insured to actually reinstate and meet conditions such as adequate sum insured. Underinsurance triggers average, proportionately reducing claims. Stock values fluctuate, so provisions for declared values or seasonal increases matter.[1]
Common mistake: Setting the sum insured at purchase price or book value instead of current rebuilding cost, inviting an average reduction.
ComGI: Business Interruption Insurance
22. Business interruption: gross profit and indemnity period
Business interruption insurance restores lost trading results following damage insured under the material damage section. It covers reduced gross profit, being revenue less working (variable) expenses, plus continuing standing charges such as rent. The indemnity period chosen defines how long reduced turnover is measured, so it must reflect realistic recovery time, including customer rebuilding, not just repair time.[1]
Common mistake: Choosing an indemnity period equal to physical rebuilding time and ignoring the longer lag in regaining lost customers.
ComGI: Liability And Contingency Insurance
23. Public liability for businesses
Public liability covers the business's legal liability for third-party bodily injury or property damage arising from its premises and operations, including defence costs, up to a selected limit. Policies distinguish premises-based incidents from ongoing operations away from site, so scope must match where the business actually works, and exclusions for professional advice or contractual undertakings apply.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming the policy automatically covers work performed at customers' premises if the policy was rated on premises exposure only.
ComGI: Liability And Contingency Insurance
24. Product liability versus product recall
Product liability responds when a product the business supplied causes bodily injury or property damage to third parties. The cost of withdrawing, replacing or destroying defective stock, and lost profits from the recall, are contingency exposures requiring separate recall or guarantee cover. The distinction matters because a standard liability policy is not a recall programme.[1]
Common mistake: Telling a client that liability insurance funds the cost of recalling and destroying the defective goods themselves.
ComGI: Commercial Motor Insurance
25. Commercial motor and fleet cover
Commercial motor insurance addresses vehicles used for business, including goods-carrying vehicles and fleets, with rating based on usage, vehicle type and claims experience. A fleet policy consolidates many vehicles under one arrangement, often with flexible vehicle substitution. Correct vehicle classification and declared usage are essential, since the premium and cover assumptions depend on them.[1]
Common mistake: Running a delivery business on a private car policy; the declared usage would not match actual commercial use.
ComGI: Marine & Aviation Insurance
26. Marine cargo, general average and aviation
Marine cargo cover protects goods in transit, typically on a warehouse-to-warehouse basis, subject to perils clauses and exclusions. A distinctive principle is general average: when a sacrifice, such as jettisoning cargo, saves the voyage, all interests in the venture contribute to that loss proportionately. Aviation policies combine hull damage with third-party and passenger liability exposures of significant magnitude.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming marine cargo claims fall only on the owner of the goods physically destroyed; general average spreads sacrifices across the voyage.
ComGI: Construction, Machinery And Bond Insurance
27. Contractors' all risks and erection all risks
Contractors' all risks cover protects contract works, temporary works and site materials against damage during construction, usually bundling third-party liability. Erection all risks extends the idea to machinery installation. Machinery breakdown cover responds to internal damage such as electrical or mechanical failure while the plant is working, but excludes wear and tear and defects existing before cover began.[1]
Common mistake: Expecting machinery breakdown cover to pay for maintenance items or gradual deterioration, which are expressly not breakdowns.
ComGI: Construction, Machinery And Bond Insurance
28. Insurance bonds and the guarantee mechanism
A bond is a guarantee, not indemnity insurance: the surety answers for the obligor's performance or payment obligation, as in a performance bond securing a building contract. If the contractor defaults, the beneficiary claims, and the surety typically holds recourse against the principal for what it pays. Bonds are issued on the expectation that no loss will occur, which shapes underwriting.[1]
Common mistake: Pricing and explaining bonds as if they were ordinary insurance where a loss is expected and no recourse exists.
ComGI: Pecuniary Insurance
29. Pecuniary covers: fidelity guarantee and credit insurance
Pecuniary insurance covers financial losses not arising from physical damage. Fidelity guarantee protects an employer against direct monetary loss caused by an employee's dishonesty, often subject to discovery-period conditions and per-employee limits. Credit insurance protects a supplier against non-payment when buyers become insolvent or default, with cover levels, waiting periods and buyer limits set in the policy.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming fidelity cover pays for any theft discovered years later without checking the policy's discovery or notification requirements.
ComGI: Foreign Worker Insurance And Group PA / Corporate Travel
30. Foreign worker insurance, group personal accident and corporate travel
Employers must maintain statutory cover for foreign workers, including medical and work-related cover at levels the authorities specify, so current requirements should always be confirmed. Group personal accident provides fixed scheduled benefits for employees suffering accidents, often as an employee benefit alongside statutory obligations rather than replacing them. Corporate travel policies cover staff business trips with per-trip limits and group-wide structure.[1]
Common mistake: Presenting group personal accident benefits as satisfying statutory work injury compensation obligations, which they are not designed to replace.
How to revise for SCI CGI
1. Stage 1: Confirm your module map and study text version
Decide which certifications your product line requires (personal lines, commercial lines, or both) and therefore whether you need BCP alone as preparation, BCP plus PGI, BCP plus ComGI, or all three. Download the current SCI eBook for each module and check the version control record; note that BCP 8th Edition Version 1.1 took effect for exams from 3 August 2026, and confirm current fees and schedules with SCI directly.
2. Stage 2: Master BCP principles before product modules
SCI advises taking BCP first because it underpins everything else. Build a one-page summary for each principle (insurable interest, utmost good faith, indemnity, proximate cause, contribution, subrogation) with a two-line original example. Test yourself by writing the mechanism in one sentence and the exception in another; fixed-benefit exceptions to indemnity recur across PGI and ComGI product questions.
3. Stage 3: Build product comparison tables for PGI and ComGI
For each product area, create a four-column table: what is covered, main conditions, typical exclusions, and one distinguishing feature versus the nearest product (houseowner vs householder, product liability vs recall, bond vs indemnity insurance). Recall of section-level differences, not vague product awareness, is what separates passing answers.
4. Stage 4: Drill scenario reasoning and simple arithmetic
Practise applying average, contribution and gross-profit logic with hypothetical numbers until the arithmetic is automatic: proportionate payouts, percentage shares between co-insurers, and rate-of-gross-profit calculations. Also rehearse proximate-cause chains, identifying the dominant cause before checking whether it is covered or excluded.
5. Stage 5: Sit timed full-length self-tests and target the gaps
Match the real conditions: BCP is 40 questions in 45 minutes, PGI and ComGI are 50 questions in 1 hour 15 minutes, closed book, with 70% to pass and no negative marking. That pace leaves roughly 67 to 90 seconds per question, so flag and move on when stuck. Log every wrong answer by topic and re-study only those eBook sections.
6. Stage 6: Final verification and exam-day logistics
In the last few days, re-read the eBook's version control record for late updates, revise your one-page principle sheets, and confirm the computer-based exam arrangement, identification requirements and booking through SCI's official channels only, given the scam advisory. Remember there is no limit on resits, so treat a first attempt as data for a targeted second attempt if needed.
Test your understanding
These original learning scenarios are for revision; they are not official examination questions.
1. A trader's warehouse is insured for $400,000 but the current reinstatement value is $500,000. A fire causes $60,000 of damage. Assuming the policy contains an average condition and no other limits apply, how much does the insurer pay and why?
Show answer and explanation
The insurer pays $48,000. The property is underinsured by $100,000, so the average condition applies: the sum insured bears to the true value as 400,000 to 500,000, which is 80%. The claim of $60,000 is therefore reduced to 80% of it, $48,000. This illustrates why sums insured must track current reinstatement cost rather than purchase price.[1]
2. During a typhoon, wind rips the roof off a shop. Heavy rain then enters and destroys the stock inside. The policy covers storm but the shopkeeper argues the proximate cause of the stock damage is rainwater ingress, which is not a listed peril. Is the claim payable?
Show answer and explanation
Yes, the claim is payable. Proximate cause is the dominant effective cause of the loss in an unbroken chain, not the event nearest in time to the damage. The typhoon removing the roof set in motion the sequence that ruined the stock, so storm is the proximate cause, and storm is an insured peril. The rain was merely the instrument of the storm's damage.[1]
3. The same stock is insured under two policies: one for $200,000 and another for $300,000, both covering fire and both in force at the time of a single $50,000 fire. How is the loss settled under the principle of contribution?
Show answer and explanation
The insurers share proportionately to their sums insured: $200,000 plus $300,000 gives a total of $500,000, so the first insurer pays two-fifths, $20,000, and the second three-fifths, $30,000. The insured receives the full $50,000 once, no more, because contribution prevents profiting by claiming the whole loss from each of multiple indemnity policies covering the same interest and peril.[1]
Frequently asked questions
Which CGI modules do I need to pass for my job?
It depends on the general insurance products you sell or advise on. MAS requires the relevant certification depending on the lines handled: personal lines products map to the Personal General Insurance Certification (BCP plus PGI), commercial lines to the Commercial General Insurance Certification (BCP plus ComGI), and BCP is the common module for both. Check MAS Notice No: 211 and Notice No: 502 and your employer's compliance guidance, and confirm your specific situation with SCI.[1]
What is the exam format and passing score for the CGI modules?
BCP has 40 multiple-choice questions in 45 minutes; PGI and ComGI each have 50 multiple-choice questions in 1 hour 15 minutes. The minimum passing grade is 70% per module. Each correct answer earns one mark and there is no penalty for wrong or blank answers, so always answer every question. Exams are closed-book computer screen tests in English, run on weekdays, and there is no limit on resits.[1]
Does passing CGI give me the Cert SCI (General Insurance) designation or a licence?
A candidate who has passed BCP, PGI and ComGI is eligible to use the designation Cert SCI (General Insurance) as specified in SCI's policy guidelines on designations. This is a professional designation, not a licence or authorisation to conduct regulated activities, and this guide's content does not guarantee a pass. Designation use must follow SCI's stated guidelines, and regulatory licensing matters rest with MAS.[1]
Can my CGI modules count towards Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) qualifications?
Yes, subject to CII terms. SCI states that candidates who passed BCP, PGI and ComGI can apply to the CII for Recognition of Prior Learning, including an exemption from the CII W01 Award in General Insurance carrying 15 certificate-level credits, with module combinations determining the certificate level awarded. SCI notes these credits are valid until 31 January 2028 and candidates must apply directly to the CII, which can amend or withdraw awards at its discretion.[1]
Which study text version should I prepare from?
Study from the current SCI eBook only; hard copies are no longer issued. SCI's notice shows a BCP study text 8th Edition (Version 1.1) released and effective for examinations from 3 August 2026. Check the version control record at the back of your eBook against SCI's important notices before you sit, because exams apply the version in force on your examination date.[1][2]
Official sources and review notes
Public IBF and SCI sources were checked on 16 September 2026 for syllabus scope and assessment details, with additional primary references where listed. References identify the relevant syllabus or subject source; explanations and examples are original teaching material. This guide selects important concepts and does not replace the full official study text. Confirm the applicable edition and any updates with the administrator before your assessment.